End of Dreaming
by Lex Munro
Summary: Deadpool/Avengers/Dark Avengers fic. Follows Nightmares. Leading Providence through two major wars and the end of an age. Pairings include Daken/Bullseye and Laura/Julian. Warnings: AU, coarse language, war, violence, character deaths. Followed by Lost & Found.
1. We Can't Afford to Be Innocent

it's that time again! that's right, it's the time where i get tired of waiting for my brain to finish all the stuff that happens in-between and i just skip right to the important plot points. i may come back and fill in the blanks, or i may just hand out little outlines and farm them to you guys to write...

so i'll start you with this little snippet, and probably post something unrelated later today, because i've got a minor backlog from waiting futilely for my brain to be productive.

**warnings:** Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). OCs: Juliet and James are the twin children of Laura Kinney and Julian Keller. reference to multiple (and impending) character deaths. language: g.

**pairing:** none/gen (background Laura/Julian and Nate/Wade).

**timeline:** 2023, maybe a few months after the events in **What I Haven't Got**.

**disclaimer:** i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

**notes:** 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." all the titles from the End of Dreaming sequence will be. 2) as we saw in **Aftermath** (part of **Nightmares**), Juliet inherited Dollpool from Hope. 3) remember how Nate left Laura in charge of his helicarrier in **(Holding on to) What I Haven't Got**? she renamed it _Dayspring_.

* * *

><p><strong>(We Can't Afford to Be) Innocent<strong>

Juliet has never been in Uncle Wade's room before. It's a little scary, to be honest, so she steps closer to James and hides her face against the back of Dollpool's head.

There's writing on one wall—not in paint or crayon or marker, but scratched into the metal. Adults seem to think it's weird, but the twins have known how to read for a while now; she can see that the writing is a bunch of names. She doesn't know most of the names, but she sees Tommy's name, and Billy's, and Teddy's, and Uncle Nathan's.

Juliet doesn't understand why Uncle Wade has a list of dead people on his wall.

He just watches them for a long time. He smells sad.

"Bet you're wondering why you're here," he says after a while.

"Duh," says James. "And why'd you send Mommy away?"

"Because I'm gonna tell you secrets, and she doesn't get to know them," Uncle Wade says. He moves his hand, and Juliet sees a sparkle—Eight-ball.

"Hello, Eight-ball," she says politely, because the flickering lights mean he's awake.

_~Hello, Juliet,~_ he replies. She likes Eight-ball's voice; he sounds a little like Uncle Wade, and he always sounds so calm and reassuring.

James snorts.

Her brother doesn't approve of talking to Eight-ball. He says Eight-ball's just a computer, not a person. Shows what James knows, because Eight-ball has people he likes and people he doesn't like, and he has a favorite song and a favorite color, and only _people_ have favorites of things. Also, Juliet's never seen a computer that cusses, and Eight-ball _does_. Eight-ball cusses as much as Mommy does, which seems to be a lot (compared to most people).

"What kind of secrets?" James asks.

Uncle Wade pats his bunk, so they go and sit on either side of him. Juliet automatically takes the side where Eight-ball is, watches him twinkle in Uncle Wade's palm. "Things about the future," he says.

"Ooh, do you know if I'm gonna marry a handsome man?" Juliet wants to know.

_~Very handsome,~_ Eight-ball tells her. _~His name is Michael, and he won't be born for another twelve years.~_

"That's a long time," says James.

_~It really isn't,~_ says Eight-ball.

"Yay!" Juliet cheers.

"That's not important," James asserts. "That's _dumb_."

"Someday, you kids are gonna be in charge of your very own helicarrier," Uncle Wade says. "So I want you to start learning how a carrier works, okay? We'll start with the guns."

"Cool!" says James.

"Which carrier will we get?" Juliet asks.

"I don't know that it really matters which—" Uncle Wade starts to say, sounding doubtful.

_~The _Dayspring_,~_ Eight-ball says.

Mommy's ship. She purses her lips. "Not because something bad happens to Mommy?"

_~Because you do a good job in a battle and your mother wants to reward you.~_

"And after the weapons, we'll move on to power source and matter synths," Uncle Wade goes on. He seems to want to change the subject.

"Why couldn't Mommy be here for that?" Juliet asks. "Is there something else you're going to tell us?"

Uncle Wade sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "Okay. Okay, let's get this over with. Let's… Franklin Richards. Valeria Richards. Danielle Cage. Katie Ashton. James Keller. Juliet Keller. Gabriel Frost. Susan Bradley. Delilah Lang. Michael Richards. Ten people instrumental in the survival of the fleet thirty years from now."

"How many of those aren't born yet?"

"The last four."

"I still don't get why Mommy had to be out of the room," James complains. "What's the big deal about a bunch of names? Mommy's good at keeping secrets."

"The most important thing you'll do in your life is die, Jim," Uncle Wade says angrily. "You think your mommy needs to hear that?"

Her brother isn't afraid—she can smell it. "But it's a good thing, right? It helps save the fleet?"

_~Yes,~_ says Eight-ball.

James nods. "So that's okay."

"But I think Mommy would be sad to know it in advance," Juliet remarks.

"So we won't tell her."

Uncle Wade sighs. "And here I thought I'd have a hard time explaining this to you kids."

"We're _five_, not _retarded_," James says primly.

**.End.**


	2. No Sacrifice

fast-forward!

**warnings:** Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). OCs: 'the twins' are Laura's kids, James and Juliet. multiple character deaths. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***, s***, and g**damn).

**pairing:** none/gen (background Luke/Jessica, Reed/Sue, Billy/Teddy, Nate/Wade, and implied Tony/Steve).

**timeline:** 2042; after years of minor skirmishes, Schmooples proposes peace talks between her Valse Faction and the Sovereign Nation of Providence.

**disclaimer:** i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

**notes:** 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." all the titles from the End of Dreaming sequence will be. 2) Danielle Cage is now a gunner on the _Avenger_. 3) a battery is a set of guns that either share the same control room or share controls directly. 4) a rail cannon works by using electro-magnetism to super-accelerate a metal slug. the amount of electric charge involved is sufficient to leave a pretty wicked plume of plasma in the projectile's wake. 5) the carriers would obviously have to be pressurized in order to keep stable atmosphere levels during altitude changes. rapid pressure changes have a heavy effect on the inner ear, and can cause loss of consciousness. 6) "sitrep" = "situational report," a summary of the current situation. 7) "loft engines" are the engines that keep a hovering structure like a helicarrier _aloft_. 8) a salvo is a round of projectile fire (from guns, bows, mortars, whatever). 9) a firing solution is the set of calculations involved in taking a shot. acquiring one is just aiming. 10) the expression "to fall off the wagon" means to lapse back into alcoholism after a period of successful sobriety.

* * *

><p><strong>(No) Sacrifice<strong>

Dani snaps awake on autopilot when the all-hands siren sounds overhead, is already zipped into her uniform and lacing her boots before she even opens her eyes. Around her, the rest of her crew is doing the same.

She's been a gunnery chief for ten years now—far longer than any career military officer should be stuck at a rank below her actual skill, but she likes her job, and she likes her crew. The third rail cannon from the starboard bow is an old and familiar friend (they named her Camilla), and she isn't sure she wants to take responsibility for more than just herself, a fire controller, and a pair of gunner's mates. They've seen a lot of action over that decade, Dani and her crew and their battery—because Tony likes to be on the front lines and likes to turn to the left—and they're used to each other.

Sometimes, she worries that his age is making him predictable.

Maybe her own age is making her predictable, too.

Hell, just look at the twins. They're not even thirty, and Juliet is a fucking tactical genius, a hair-trigger, turn-on-a-dime girl with the tenacity of a pitbull and a new trick every second of the day. She _will_ captain a carrier, Dani knows it. And she'll be fucking _good at it_.

"This sucks," groans Peters. "I thought we had the day off, because of the peace talks."

"Somethin' ain't right," says Benson. "Commander Stark wouldn't drag us outta bed today without a damn good reason."

Porter nods. "We better get to our gun, then. Cage? Cage! You awake?"

"Naw, I sleep with my eyes open," Dani says, blinking while she ties off her other boot and stands up. "Let's go. And if you ever ask me that again, I'll slug you."

Starboard three bulkheads, aft one, and down the ladder into their own private little compartment of hell. The gun control rooms are all heavily armored and full of important electronics, so they get to a sweltering state during pitched battle. Dani hopes this won't be pitched battle (a light scuffle at the worst), but as soon as all three of her crew have taken up stations, she hops back onto the ladder and cranks the hatch shut. If there's a hull breach in any of the adjacent bulkheads, that hatch is the only thing between them and loss of consciousness from decompression.

She settles in and slips her earpiece on while she starts the charging sequence. "Starboard third battery online, rail cannon charging." Camilla takes exactly eight seconds to charge standard ammunition during the day, nine point seven at night.

After a brief pause, she hears Tony's voice in her ear. _~"Gunnery Chief Cage, pass your main gun off, I need you in the war room."~_

She only hesitates a split-second. "Respectfully, Commander, _no fucking way_. If something's happened to my father, I'd rather get revenge first and cry later. Can I have a sitrep, or should I just start firing?"

_~"Two minutes ago, we received communication from Commander Cage that the peace talks were a sham and the Valse Faction had killed the delegation and several of the military personnel aboard the _Sanctuary_. He locked himself on the bridge and crashed the ship into the city. We're standing by for orders from _Providence_, but I, for one, would like to turn the _Ifrit_ into Swiss cheese."~_

"Copy that, Commander." There's a roiling sensation in her gut, but she tamps down on it. Going into hysterics won't help anyone. If her father's dead, he's dead. Something this big wouldn't happen—wouldn't _be allowed_ to happen—unless it was averting something worse. She trusts in that, the way Val and Frank do, the way Steve does.

_Did_. They killed the delegation. Steve, Pete, and five adjutants to take care of the paperwork.

Dani takes aim at the top of the Valse Faction ship, waits with her finger on the button. All she needs is a firing order and a clear shot of the bridge.

The order comes over the speakers instead of her communicator.

_~"Attention, crew of the _Avenger_, this is your Supreme Commander speaking. If your gunners would be kind enough to target the bridge and loft engines of the _Ifrit_ at this time, that'd be super-duper. In exactly five seconds, I'd like you all to drop that ugly piece of slag out of my sky. Pleasekaythanksbye."~_

"You heard the man," Dani calls over her shoulder. "Let's drop that bitch like a rock. First salvo down her throat in two—one—fire."

The stabilizers are too good for them to feel the thud of the big guns, but they can hear the muffled staccato of all the starboard batteries going off.

On her viewscreen, the bridge of the _Ifrit_ is consumed by a cloud of fire and smoke. "Second salvo on her nearest loft engine."

"Acquiring firing solution," says Benson.

"Waiting for main gun," Peters adds.

Dani watches the meter slowly fill. "My old man did _not_ ram his ship into Moscow so that demented time-traveling house cat could get away with killing Captain _goddamn_ America. Fuck them _and_ the ship they rode in on. Fire at will."

The _Ifrit_ never even gets a shot off. She falls like a rock into the trough left by the _Sanctuary_'s fall. At least their counterstrike hasn't added to the civilian casualties.

An hour and one hasty debriefing later, the Supreme Commander has specifically requested for Dani and Tony to see him in his quarters.

Dani can feel tension and anger pouring off Tony as they walk briskly to the heart of _Providence_. He's just lost the man who was his best friend and closest companion for most of his life.

For her part, she doesn't know what to feel. Her father and several family friends are dead. Down in Moscow, something like two thousand people are dead or missing, and it's not like the city's population could afford that kind of hit. But they got the _Ifrit_, and as far as anyone knows, Schmooples was killed when the _Sanctuary_ went down.

When they arrive at the deceptively modest Captain's Quarters, Tony pounds on the door.

"C'mon in."

So they do.

The room is lit dimly, except for a list of names projected in white on the wall. Beside the projected list, Dani can make out more names—hundreds of names. In the very middle, bigger and deeper than all the rest, 'Tom Shepherd.' She only remembers Tommy vaguely; her mother used to insist he was a terrible babysitter and a bad influence, and in the years leading up to the Big One, he didn't spend much time around the rest of the Avengers.

Off to one side, almost as big, 'Nathan Dayspring.' She hardly knew the man, but everyone on the carriers knows the name; Commander Keller named her ship _Dayspring_ when she took command after the suicide mission that destroyed the original Federated Skyfleet.

Clustered nearby, two more: Will Altman, Ted Altman. Teddy was a shapeshifter, and damn good at it; Dani (and Val, and probably every other small child Billy ever babysat) constantly demanded his Cap impression when she was little.

On the other side, a trio: Neena Thurman, Jessica Cage, Daniel Rand. Odd…she doesn't remember when she got the news about Mom and Uncle Dan, or what she felt at the time. She was twenty-seven, so she was probably halfway across the world fighting VF. Looking back, she's proud. They died like heroes. They died like Avengers.

Like her dad. Like Cap.

Dani hopes she'll go out the same way, either putting a shot between the eyes of a tyrant or buying thousands of innocent lives. It occurs to her that the thought is somewhat morbid, but she chalks that up to getting older.

Wade is just digging the last stroke of the final R in 'Peter Parker.' "Commander-General Stark, Gunnery Chief Cage," he says, blowing tiny flakes of paint and metal away from his handiwork. "Thought you kids might want to do the honors yourselves. There's a good spot up top for Cap, and the left side's got a decent blank for Luke—whose unlikely support, by the way, I've always appreciated."

"Yeah," Dani says. "Well, he always believed in you. Cap did, too."

"How long have you been in here carving today?" Tony asks, and his voice sounds low and rough.

"Four hours now," Wade tells them. "You didn't honestly think this happened by chance, did you? Sometimes you have to sacrifice a rook to get the queen. The entire civilian complement of the _Sanctuary_ was distributed to the _Mockingbird_ and the _Progress_ three days ago, along with two thirds of her military staff. What was left was the optimum roster—I'm sure you can appreciate that."

"Did Steve know?"

"That if he went onto that ship hoping for peace, he'd end up dead?" Wade bluntly asks.

"That."

"Yep."

Dani jumps a little in surprise when Tony punches Wade. Sure, Tony doesn't _look_ much past fifty (thanks to life extension treatments), but Dani knows he's pushing ninety and it's jarring to think of such an old man punching someone.

"Careful," Wade blandly says, popping his nose back into place. "You could hurt yourself doing that."

"How could you just _let him_—" Tony blusters, but Wade just raises his voice to talk over him.

"Oh, yes, how could I just _let_ Captain America save five thousand lives? My God, what was I thinking? Eight-ball, give me the maximum projection if Cap had lived today."

_~In 6% of branches stemming from such an alternative, the population of the Sovereign Nation of Providence five years from now is approximately forty-seven thousand. The average projected population under revised conditions is only fourteen thousand. Under current conditions, the maximum projected population is forty-four thousand, while the average is nineteen thousand.~_

Wade starts in on a different name. "The numbers game, I plays it. But I did leave the decision up to Steve."

"Game?" Tony says through clenched teeth.

"Yes," Wade replies. "And I play it better than you and Reed _ever_ did, thanks to Eight-ball. Plug in the variables, run the simulations. Give up Luke, take out Schmooples. Give up Cap, get an extra five thousand people. I said, 'Steve, old buddy, how'd ya like to save five thousand lives?' and he said, 'What do I have to do?' So I told him, 'Well, that's the depressing part: ya gotta die,' and he said, 'Point me in the right direction.'"

Dani has to admit it sounds like Cap.

"And you were all-too-happy to point the way, weren't you?" spits Tony.

Quick as anything, Wade grabs Tony in a headlock and forces him to look at Dani. "You do not have the monopoly on human suffering, pal. Somewhere in that woman's brain is a little girl who just lost her daddy. I know you didn't give two shits for yours, but she _loved_ hers, and I get to live with the fact that I sent him to his death so that I could kill nine hundred sixty-seven civilians and a _fluffy white kitty_." He lets Tony go. "Compared to that, I didn't even think twice about trading Cap for five thousand, just like I know _you_ wouldn't have thought twice if our positions had been reversed."

Tony leans on the wall, picks a flake of paint free with his thumbnail. "The difference is that I never much liked Nathan."

"And I always admired Steve."

Tony looks at the names again. "What're you using, a _screwdriver_? Would've been much easier with a laser etching tool."

Wade opens his hand. He's been using a multi-tool of some kind—the philips head. "I like the screwdriver," he says, and closes his hand around it again. He digs the T in Tommy's name a little deeper. "It gives me time to think."

Dani zips open a cargo pocket in her jumpsuit and flips open her own multi-tool. Something in her chest loosens as she presses the titanium tip into the comparatively soft paint-and-steel surface of the interior bulkhead. She can't dig the letters as deeply as Wade does (then again, she remembers seeing Wade and her father bending steel bars in a drunken contest at some point). Still, there's a certain relief to be found in using the strength of her own hands to deform metal so that it'll always bear her father's name.

The three of them work together in silence for a while.

"I need a drink," Tony says quietly. "Or five. Or twelve."

"Oh, yeah," says Wade. "Fall off the wagon. That's a great way to thank your boyfriend for his noble sacrifice."

"_Fuckyou_," Tony hisses, but breaks off. "Sorry," he mutters. "How the hell did you do it, back then?"

Wade dusts off another new name. "By remembering that my baby girl's gonna need help saving the world in two thousand years, and that she'd probably appreciate it if there's some world left to save. To be honest, I think I'm still in denial. I'm good at denial. Tellya what, Stark—you keep it together for another year and I'll let you retire. You can spend the rest of your days drinking your liver to death in the Swiss Alps or something."

"A year, huh?" Tony says, and blows a puff of air at his carving so he can stand back and survey his handiwork. "Okay. Three hundred sixty-five days and six hours from now."

"Start a timer for me, Eight-ball."

Beneath the list of names (which has shrunk to account for the finished carvings), a clock appears and begins to count down.

"If that's all you needed, Commander," Tony sighs. "I'll be in the mess hall when you're ready to go, Danielle." And he leaves.

When the door shuts, Dani starts on the last E in her father's name. "He's not going to be here in a year, is he," she says.

"He's not going to be here in a year," Wade confirms. "He's the last of a set of six geniuses yoinked by time travelers. Has to happen to keep the human race from dying out later on. Eight-ball was very specific. But for the next several months, I still need him to command your ship. Keep up the good work, and feel free to mention any wild strategies that cross your mind, especially if they happen to involve tactics you saw in Blazing Saddles, because that is seriously going to work out for you."

"You're kidding, right?"

"I'm not kidding, Dani. You, Frank, and Juliet are my winning team. In twenty years, the fate of the fleet will be riding on your courage and the noble self-sacrifice of Logan's snarky bitch son."

Dani makes a face. If there's one thing completely counter to Lieutenant Daken's nature, it's self-sacrifice. "Oh. Nice. So we're doomed, then."

He laughs. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? Just trust me."

"I do," she assures him. "I can't imagine having to do what you do. And I can't think of anyone who'd do it even half as well. You're a hero."

Suddenly, he stops in the middle of carving a name (Margaret Rachen-something). There's something pained and far-away on his scarred face for a moment, and then he slams the screwdriver into the wall and carves along the furrows of Tommy's name with a desperate kind of fervor.

"I'm not a hero," he says, and his voice is as low and rough as Tony's was earlier. "You know how Tom died?"

She shrugs.

"When the carriers first lifted off, there was a lot of panic. A woman fell and twisted her ankle and dropped her four-year-old daughter, who would've been crushed in a heartbeat if Tom hadn't left his post to save her. And then it was too late. He pushed and shoved and almost, _almost_ made it. And Kate—Lieutenant Bradley—reached down to help him up, and you know what he did?"

Dani knows what an Avenger would do. And Tommy was an Avenger. "He gave her the little girl instead," she whispers.

"_That's_ a real hero," he tells her. "Not to cheapen what Steve did—because the guy saved people practically every day of his life—but sacrificing yourself for _one stranger_ is _real_ heroism. Anybody can be brave if they know it'll save thousands. It takes someone pretty special to be brave for one little girl."

"I think I know what you mean."

He sniffs and wipes his nose and goes back to work on Margaret Rachen-something's name. "I'm not a hero," he says again. "I kill heroes. That makes me a villain."

Dani shakes her head. "It makes you a leader. Sir."

Wade pauses again and turns to look at her.

"Somebody who gives his life for one stranger is a hero. Somebody who gives his life for thousands of strangers is a _leader_. And maybe you're still breathing…but you're giving these people your life. _That's_ why we follow you. I know I speak for Val and Frank when I say we'd follow you into hell to kick the devil's ass, sir."

"I don't think it'll come to that," he says with a wry grin. "But thanks."

She salutes, waits for his nod, and leaves.

As she walks briskly toward the mess hall, she feels both daunted and encouraged. The bravest man she's ever known has told her that everything she loves will depend on her courage.

She has twenty years to work her way there.

She'd better get started.

**.End.**


	3. This Shattered Dream

more fast-forward!

**warnings:** Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). OCs: James and Juliet are the twin children of Laura Kinney and Julian Keller. multiple character deaths. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***, s***, and g**damn).

**pairing:** none/gen (background Daken/Lester and Laura/Julian).

**timeline:** 2043; after a brilliant tactical move, Juliet received command of the _Dayspring_, and now she and her father have to ensure Taskmaster makes it safely back to _Providence_ with the blueprints of an enemy dreadnought.

**disclaimer:** i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

**notes:** 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." all the titles from the End of Dreaming sequence will be. 2) Julian Keller took command of _Haven_ after the death of Emma Frost. 3) a broadside is a round of fire on the full length of the enemy's flank (the _broad side_ of the ship). 4) "loft engines" are the engines that keep a hovering structure like a helicarrier _aloft_. 5) the bridge is the part of a ship where most of the command stations are located. it's usually up high, so that the captain can get a good overview of the battlefield. on the upgraded helicarriers, the bridge is in an armored area at the very core of the ship, cut off from the outside world except for camera feeds and various instrumentation (kinda like on a submarine). 6) Valse Faction is what you get when you take the remains of the Federated Skyfleet, tack them onto the Socialist Air Defense Fleet, and put Schmooples in charge. a valse is a kind of dance. don't ask. 7) ventral is belly-side, the opposite of dorsal. 8) flak is antiaircraft fire (and the associated guns). flak weaponry is generally heavy-duty and high-angle. 9) a battery is a set of guns that either share the same control room or share controls directly. 10) a firing solution is the set of calculations involved in taking a shot. acquiring one is just aiming. 11) "dreadnought" is a generalized term for a large ship that is basically all guns. 12) on a ship, most things are bolted down to keep them from flying all over the place during maneuvers. 13) on a bunk, a "jump bar" is a medium-duty bar installed to make getting in and out of the bunk faster and easier. it's an especially important component of a capsule-style bunk (like the ones on the airline shuttle in Fifth Element), which you'd otherwise have to crawl laboriously into and out of. i think there's another term for it, too, but i forget what that term is. 14) running crying to Daken happened in **Unexpected** (part of **Beautiful Disaster**).

* * *

><p><strong>This Shattered Dream<strong>

It only takes an instant and a lucky shot to knock Juliet off the top of the world.

Before. She's just swept heavy fire across the flank of the _Requiem_. Their armor can't possibly hold for much longer—the next broadside will punch through the hull. The pincer attack will crush them.

Then one of the _Requiem_'s plasma cannons switches targets, from the _Dayspring_ to _Haven_, and that brief spark triggers a disproportionate flash of light on the viewscreen.

After. Her bridge crew is sending her frantic reports. _Haven_'s photonic converter just shattered, and the backup systems are barely enough to power the carrier's engines. No shields. No communications. No weapons.

"Fuck. No. _Fuck_," she mutters. "Emergency power to loft engines, hit their goddamn bridge!"

The eternal trade-off against Valse Faction: the bridge is up top, but so are most of the guns. 'If you can shoot us, we've probably shot you,' is how Uncle Wade once described the basic motivation.

"Forward ventral shields falling rapidly, Staff-Commander!"

Juliet slams her fist on the arm of her command chair. "I don't fucking care, just get us up there before—"

But it's too late now.

The _Dayspring_ was too sluggish to shield her sister ship. Flak fire rips through the core of _Haven_.

"_Haven_ has sustained direct fire to her bridge, communications still down—"

"Forward ventral shields at twenty percent—"

"Forward batteries report firing solution acquired—"

Juliet jumps to her feet. "Fire all!"

There's still the chance. The tiniest chance.

The _Requiem_'s bridge explodes, the ship starts to list. _Haven_ sails headlong into the mountainside.

Stunned silence reigns for a moment.

Something beeps, and her comms officer clears his throat. "Report from _Providence_, the intelligence operative arrived. The dreadnought schematics were delivered successfully."

Juliet ignores him. "Scan for survivors," she says instead, and watches the scan's progress on the screen.

Negative.

Her father and brother are dead.

She's failed. For the first time in her career—in her _life_—she's completely failed at something.

"Get me a channel to the Supreme Commander."

The screen flickers to another helicarrier bridge. Uncle Wade looks very dour, even for him. She can't remember ever seeing him smile.

"Report from the _Dayspring_," she says. "_Haven_ is down. One hundred percent casualty rate."

_~"I know. I knew when you were five. The probability of both carriers surviving a direct assault on the _Requiem_ was fourteen percent. Eight of that involved the _Requiem_ making it back to us and taking out the scout ship before it could make its delivery. Four on one would beat the hell outta two on one, but without that schematic, we all die in twenty years."~_

Juliet takes a long breath. "I see."

_~"Proceed to the rendezvous, Staff-Commander."~_

"Yes, sir."

The channel cuts back to their forward camera.

"Stand down battle stations, resume course. I'll be in my quarters."

"Yes, ma'am."

In her room, she throws the few things that aren't bolted down. She punches the wall until she dents it, catches her breath while her hands heal, and punches the wall some more. Then she pauses again, rips the jump bar out of her bunk, starts to carve…

Julian Keller. James Keller. Joshua Foley. Ororo Monroe. Inez Temple. Kate Bradley. Eli Bradley.

She's stuck. Her mind's gone blank; she can't remember who else was on _Haven_.

"Shit!" she screams at the dented and scratched wall.

"Oh, I agree—it's not your best penmanship."

She whirls toward her door and attacks because she can.

Daken's a good sport about it, lets her get in her punches. He stops her when her anger gets the best of her and she draws her claws—he slaps her silly with a clawed backhand of his own.

"Finished?" he asks.

"Ow," she mutters, grimacing at the sting of her face mending. "Yeth. Thorry." And good thing it was a backhand; his claws can go right through her bones, and they both know it. She'd rather not have to explain the mess of having half her skull sliced off.

Casually, comfortably, he kicks aside a flung book and sits at her desk. "I am an absolutely horrible and unsympathetic listener, but here I am. Come tell Uncle Daken about your feelings."

She laughs mirthlessly. He's _always_ been a horrible, unsympathetic listener; it's part of what makes her feel safe talking to him. Anyway, if he didn't want to end up as a confidant, he should have snapped and snarled the first time she ran crying to him when she was seven.

"Am I too young?" she asks.

"For what?"

"For…" She waves her hand around. "This. All this. _Staff-Commander Keller_. Is that why I couldn't win today?"

"We," he corrects. "_We_, precious; you don't run this flying tin can all by yourself. At full alert, it takes a minimum of thirty gunners, two engineers, a pilot, and a comms officer—and that's only if the gunners are good enough to work two-to-a-gun instead of the full four. Lester and I were running your primary forward battery. So _we_ failed, too. Not just you, Julie."

That's true. But it was all her responsibility, and she was the one giving the orders. "There was a six percent chance that both our carriers would make it _and_ we'd stop the _Requiem_. If I'm so fucking brilliant, shouldn't I have found that six percent chance?"

"Oh, _please_." He heaves a sigh. "The odds of a photonic converter shattering in the heat of battle are incredible. Your tactical assessment assumed that _Haven_ wouldn't suddenly be dead in the water. It was a sound assumption. You rolled snake-eyes; it could've happened to anyone."

"You don't sound very sure of that," she points out.

Daken grunts. "That's because this useless and obnoxious self-flagellation is actually something that runs in the family. We don't _like_ not winning. Nobody does. But we—you and I especially—like to think that we're smart enough to win all the time, even when we know that _nobody_ wins all the time. Loath as I am to admit it, I know exactly how you feel right now."

"With the minor exception that I _liked_ my dad and my brother?"

He sneers. "Yes, aside from that. A failure is a failure, and I've had my share of utterly dismal ones." His hand goes to his forearm, where she knows there's a long scar hidden by his sleeve. "I'm currently the second-oldest citizen of Providence, and I can tell you that age has very little to do with how often schemes fail. We can't plan for _everything_."

"Uncle Wade does."

That pisses him off, even if it doesn't show on his face. "Your godfather is a walking ludicrous impossibility, and he has a self-aware glass computer that calculates the probabilities of future events…but there is an enormous difference between probability and statistics, Julie. Just because the odds of something happening are slim, that doesn't mean it won't happen. And conversely, just because the odds are good, that doesn't mean it _will_ happen. Besides which, knowing the odds in advance alters them, so just how much do you think that preposterous lump of light actually _tells_ the Supreme Commander?"

"I'm sorry," she sighs. "I'm being a total dumbass about this."

"You are," he agrees. "But your father and brother just died, and while I _hate_ my father, I understand what it is to feel familial love, and I understand your sense of loss. So come here and give me a hug—and remember that if you ever mention it, I will probably eviscerate you."

She gets up and goes to him, and throws her arms around his broad, strong shoulders. He smells like leather and sweat. He smells like her mother.

"We're better than everyone else, Julie," he murmurs, rubbing at the spot between her shoulder blades. "But we're not perfect. _Everybody_ fucks up sometime. Just shake it off and keep going. All right?"

She nods.

He lets her cling until she's ready to let go, and she's grateful for that.

Suddenly, she notices that it's just the two of them. She frowns at the door. "Where's Mr. B?" she asks.

"I told Lester to go get us some lunch," Daken replies. "Because the hug that will never again be mentioned is the sort of thing about which he would _tease_ me endlessly, and he, sad to say, does not recover quite so well from evisceration as you and I."

**.End.**


	4. This Sudden Darkness

this part originally didn't exist. and then my hands wrote some bonding time for Wade and Eight-ball. *shrug*

**warnings:** Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). OCs: Juliet is Laura's daughter. reference to multiple and future character deaths. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f*** and s***).

**pairing:** none/gen (background Laura/Julian, implied one-sided Nate/Wade elsewhere in the multiverse).

**timeline:** 2065; after ten years of uneasy peace, war broke out again, and now the fleet is reduced to three crippled ships.

**disclaimer:** i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

**notes:** 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." all the titles from the End of Dreaming sequence will be. 2) Eight-ball's third definition of pain is a reference to **One Spark** and **Firework**, a pair of Fateverse Side Stories about the Savant. 3) on a bunk, a "jump bar" is a medium-duty bar installed to make getting in and out of the bunk faster and easier. it's an especially important component of a capsule-style bunk (like the ones on the airline shuttle in Fifth Element), which you'd otherwise have to crawl laboriously into and out of. i think there's another term for it, too, but i forget what that term is. 4) "dreadnought" is a generalized term for a large ship that is basically all guns. 5) the flagship of a fleet is the ship of the fleet's commander. more commonly, it's a temporary designation of whatever ship the admiral is on. 6) "en route" is a French phrase commonly used in English. it means "on the way." 7) when Steve Rogers was assassinated at the beginning of the Flotilla War (the three-year war that kicked off in **(No) Sacrifice**), Tony renamed the _Avenger_ in Steve's honor. when Tony vanished less than a year later, Pepper Hogan took charge. when the Skywar began in 2063, Dani suggested an interesting tactic and Pepper happily passed command to her. 8) FDF = Fleet Defense Force. 9) "Year Zero" is the theoretical year of Hope's landing. Juliet and the civilians have been told that they're going to be setting up camp at Hope's landing point and waiting for her. they're actually setting up camp to make a resistance cell when Apocalypse takes over. SHHHHH, don't spoil the surprise for them. 10) "Let's do this shit" is actually a reference to **A Glass Darkly** from **Blood & Tears**.

* * *

><p><strong>This Sudden Darkness<strong>

Wade stares at the new wall. That is, the wall's not really new, but he calls it the 'new' wall because he ran out of space on the 'old' wall, the wall where he started carving forty-some years ago when Kate called in with 'one casualty.'

The big name on the new wall is Frank Richards. Not as big as the first name, but pretty big. Pretty deep, too, because when he starts to feel stumped, he carves Frank's name and wonders what the whiz-kid would do.

"Where the fuck are all the geniuses when you need 'em?" he mutters to himself.

_~Juliet is on the _Dayspring_. Most of the others are dead.~_

"It was rhetorical. And you know that's not what I meant. She's not the same kinda smart. Stark would have a way outta this."

_~His way out of this would be exactly the way you're going to take. And then he'd be dead, since he doesn't have a healing factor. And then, in another few thousand years, the human race would be doomed for lack of Tony Stark's brain. I do actually know what I'm doing.~_

Wade knows Eight-ball is right. Eight-ball is always right. That's very annoying. He expresses his annoyance with Eight-ball's always being right by shoving the thing carelessly onto the floor and watching it bounce and roll.

_~That,~_ it says sourly, _~was completely uncalled for.~_

Wade wonders if the Node actually feels pain. He understands that vibration can disrupt their 'thought' processes, and Eight-ball says things like 'ow' when someone drops or throws it.

Him?

It.

Whatever.

"Do you know what pain is?" Wade asks.

_~Pain is a range of electrical signals passed along nerves to special interpretive neurons in the brain.~_

"That's not what I meant."

_~Pain is a message from the body to the brain warning of injury, whether temporary or lasting. In that sense, I can feel pain. I'm sure that's why you were asking. A hard enough impact could cause me permanent damage, so I receive an alarm signal on a very basic level, something that doesn't go through interpretive data channels. It's more than just a number, it's more than just 'oh, four Newtons, whatever.' I feel panic, I experience an analog to adrenal response, my thought processes are disrupted.~_

"Huh," Wade says, watching the Node roll to a gentle stop in a corner of the room.

_~Pain is watching someone you love suffer and thinking you're doing everything you can to stop it, only he doesn't want you to. And what can you do? You can't just stop. If you just stop, if you just accept it, then he's going to suffer, and he's going to die, and nothing will mean anything anymore. So even though helping might make him angry, or sad, you have to do _something_, because Wade never lets anyone help him, that's part of who he is. So you just keep going, because you're a Summers, and you can be stubborn, too, and this is the only way you know to be.~_

Wade's hands are trembling on his knees.

_~Yes, Wade, I know what pain is.~_

"So you…" Wade says slowly. "You used to be a Nate?"

There's a long pause. _~No. And yes.~_

"What does that even mean? No and yes?"

_~I, the sentient artificial intelligence known as Eight-ball, was written piecemeal as a heuristic copy of a computerized human consciousness and put into a vessel that already bore a heavy resonance signature. I've never had a body, and never had life experiences, but over time, I've been gaining memories of two people I've never been. It's complicated, and it involves a lot of resonance theory. But anyway, no and yes.~_

"Two people."

_~Two people.~_

"Care to elaborate?"

_~No. You're being nosy, and it's none of your fuckin' business. It should be enough to know that I do genuinely understand guilt and sorrow.~_

It should.

It is.

Wade nods. "Yeah. Sorry 'bout that." He gets up and fetches Eight-ball back. "Couldya hit the lights? I need some shut-eye before the big push."

The lights go out, and it's just Eight-ball twinkling in the darkness, like Christmas lights from far away.

Wade dreams of Christmases past. Of Neena's laughter and Bob's bad sweaters and kisses under the mistletoe. X-Force Christmases and X-Men Christmases. Avengers Christmases because Billy figured out that Tommy wouldn't go unless Hope made him. SHIELD charity balls, where Tony always let Val and Dani pick the tree, and it was always _huge_ and covered with lights. Hope loved the lights.

_~Wade.~_

Wade snaps awake and nearly brains himself on the jump bar of his bunk. "I'm up! We under attack?"

_~This is it.~_

"What's it? This is what?" Wade asks, still muzzy and disoriented. He frowns and reaches for the glint of lights in darkness. Eight-ball is warm to the touch, like he's been calculating while Wade was asleep.

_~Dreadnought _Excalibur_ is bearing down on us, and flagship _Madeen_ is en route. I've outlined the optimum solution.~_

"Of course you have," sighs Wade. "Well, we already knew the _Dayspring_ was gonna be our lifeboat. I assume you started evacuations."

_~Yes. Nearly 90% of all civilians have been successfully relocated to the _Dayspring_, and shuttles are still in the air. Military staff is being redistributed so that the _Steve Rogers_ will be fully manned for maximum firepower. Working matter synths have been redistributed as well, one each provisionally on _Providence_ and the _Steve Rogers_, and the remainder on the _Dayspring_.~_

"Good. Call up the FDF. Daken and Bullseye are still our team?"

_~Yes. In fact, the chances of success have risen by 2% since last week. Nobody else will work. It has to be them. And the _Steve Rogers_ will go down—we're up to 88.5% on that.~_

"Shit. I owe Dani better than that."

_~She isn't doing it for you. This is how she wants to go. Literally _nothing_ would make her prouder than to have you put her name on your wall. She's doing it for the eighteen thousand, six hundred and seventy-one civilians who'll be running for the landing point.~_

Wade rubs his eyes. "And Juliet knows what to do?"

_~I've given her the landing coordinates. She assumes that's where they need to wait for Year Zero. Correcting her would've been needlessly confusing, time-consuming and counter-productive.~_

"Ah, right. Same reason you don't tell _me_ everything," Wade says bitterly.

_~I've learned that telling you everything makes you waste time,~_ Eight-ball retorts in a sharp tone. _~I walk a delicate line, trading lives for lives. Let the right thousand people die now, fifty thousand more might live later on, but I still do the math to see if they're going to be enslaved or something before I make the call. If you don't believe in that, then throw me out the fucking airlock and do this your damn self.~_

He sighs. "No, I…I get it, I really do. It's just frustrating. It's…everyone I've ever known is going to die, but I can't."

The room goes black, and Wade sees the shooting-star-spark that means Eight-ball's actually being sympathetic.

_~No, you can't yet. I'm sorry. Hope needs you. It's all come down to this. You have to be strong today—don't waste the lives we've already paid.~_

Wade looks at the faint gleam along the letters on his walls and shakes his head. "No. I know. If we don't get them out of here, there'll be no one left. And if I don't make it to the fortieth century, Stryfe gets Hope."

_~And kills Nate, pruning 25% of the branches with highest stability.~_

"And that's bad."

_~Very. As per your Plan—capital letter and all, yes, I remember—I've called an emergency meeting of the FDF, and all seven members will be aboard within the next fifteen minutes. The _Excalibur_ will be in range in twenty, the _Madeen_ arrives in forty.~_

Wade grabs a knife from the space between mattress and wall. "Groovy. Let's do this shit."

_~I'd like to take this opportunity to express my complete and utter disgust with this particular aspect of the Plan.~_

"Duly noted."

**.End.**


	5. Stand up and Face the Enemy

okay, it's time to take my hands off this thing and stop fidgeting with it. i've seriously been prodding it off and on for more than three weeks now. IT'S DONE, LEX-WALK AWAY, MAN.

**warnings:** some Dark Avengers. Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). OCs: Juliet is Laura's daughter, Mike Richards (Juliet's husband) is Frank's son, Gabe Frost is Scott & Emma's son, Katie Ashton is the girl Tommy saved back in **Hero** (a **Nightmares Side Story**). mild gore & violence. multiple and future character deaths. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***, s***, and g**damn).

**pairing:** Daken/Lester (with background Juliet/Mike).

**timeline:** 2065, shortly after **This Sudden Darkness**.

**disclaimer:** i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

**notes:** 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." all the titles from the End of Dreaming sequence will be. 2) if it's not clear, "Summers" is Rachel, "Richards" is Michael (Frank's son), "Ashton" is Katie, and "Frost" is Gabriel (son of Scott & Emma). 3) "tac" in military terms is short for "tactical." 4) "Dani" is Danielle Cage, Commander of the _Steve Rogers_. 5) "suicide like Dayspring" is a reference to **(Holding on to) What I Haven't Got** (last chapter of **Nightmares**). 6) remember those little mini shaped-charges from **Further Adventures in Kidnapping** (part of **Dreams of the Waking Man**)? yeah, Wade loves those things. 7) VF = Valse Faction, the bad guys. 8) Tasky had stolen a copy of the schematics for the _Excalibur_ when he needed Julian and Juliet to cover his escape in **This Shattered Dream**. 9) flak is antiaircraft fire (and the associated guns). flak weaponry is generally heavy-duty and high-angle. 10) in military orientation, "two o'clock" is ahead and to the right. 11) the brig is the detention area of a ship, where they lock up stowaways, troublemakers, prisoners, etc. 12) "dreadnought" is a generalized term for a large ship that is basically all guns. 13) Stark, if you'll recall, has been abducted by Stryfe and taken into the future to be turned into the computer program that will build Eight-ball (see **Quartermaster**, part of the **Hypnic Twitches**).

* * *

><p><strong>(Stand up and) Face the Enemy<strong>

Daken doesn't like the tactical information he's been hearing. He also doesn't like the fact that _Providence_ has clearly had her civilian complement evacuated without anyone telling him.

Because of this, he's in a very sour mood indeed when he walks into the emergency meeting of the Fleet Defense Force.

Wilson looks grim; that usually means he's been talking to _it_.

Daken pans his gaze around the room. There's seven of them now. Himself and Lester, Laura, Summers, Richards, Ashton, Frost. There used to be thirty. There used to be Johnny, and Karla, and Mac when he recovered. There used to be his stupid heroic father.

"We," Wilson says slowly and gravely, "are well and truly fucked."

"You say it like it's news," snorts Lester. "So you've moved all the civilians. You were planning on telling us at some point?"

"Right about now," Wilson replies. "Hi, guys. I moved the civilians you're supposed to be protecting. They're all on the _Dayspring_, which is going to run like hell."

"And if none of us are on it, who's going to be protecting them?" Richards asks.

"Excellent question, Mike. Your wife. And what's left of her crew. And most of my crew."

"Wade," sighs Summers, rubbing her brow. "Even if we can stall the _Madeen_ and they make it to the landing point, there's still the _Excalibur_. And she's gonna blow all three carriers out of the sky—or ground, as the case may be."

Laura shakes her head. "The _Dayspring_ is the only one with all her engines at full strength, the _Steve Rogers_ is the only one with all her guns, we're all working on half staff, none of us have more than two matter synths to go around…"

"Giving up so soon?" snorts Frost.

"Shut your mouth, Gabe," says Wilson, over the sound of Laura's growl. "She's just stating the facts."

"We don't give up, Frost," Daken says flatly. "It's in our blood. We fight until we win or there's nothing left. If we have to, we run for a while and come back."

Wilson taps the tac map projected on the surface of the table. "And I've got a way for us to win."

"I thought you said we were fucked," Ashton argues.

"Oh, we are. One way or another, this is the end of the Sovereign Nation of Providence."

"Fuck that," drawls Lester. "Don't gimme that bullshit, Wilson, we're both too old for it. Get to the part where we fuck up Renquist and Lindon, because I am tired as fuck of those two bitches."

Wilson shrugs. "Good. I need a small team to go with me to fuck Lindon up in person, and I was hoping for you and the fairy princess."

"That's the best news I've had all day."

Daken gives a theatrical sigh. "Oh, all right. Since darling Lester seems so interested, I'm game. How are we to accomplish this 'fucking up'?"

"We're gonna hop on board the _Excalibur_ and blow her to kingdom come. Meanwhile, everybody else will be split between _Providence_ and the _Steve_ to coordinate fire—I need you guys to buy Juliet enough time to get away. She can't outrun the _Madeen_ and she can't stand up to the _Excalibur_ in a fight."

Laura nods. "So we hold the attention of both ships until she's got a lead on the _Madeen_, you take out the big guns. It could work."

"Wouldn't Rachel be better for a boarding party?" Frost asks. "I mean, she could cheat and do the Phoenix thing."

Daken can smell the sadness and regret from Wilson, but waits to hear what the man will say.

There's a pause, and then Wilson shakes his head. "Dani's gonna need her to 'cheat' so they have something resembling evasive capability. Greenie, you get my boat. Katie-pie, you're the best shot after Dani, so I want you on Laura's guns."

Ashton nods. "Got it."

"Gabe, Mike, pick a boat." Wilson puts a hand on Laura's shoulder. "You do _whatever it takes_."

She clasps his shoulder in return. "They got one of my babies. They're not getting the other one. You just do your thing, old man."

"So," says Richards. "Suicide mission. That's great. That's all that was missing from my day."

"Chickening out, hm?" Daken teases.

"Oh, hell no," laughs Richards. "You kidding? Julie'd never let me hear the end of it. You three old-timers just make sure you don't fall and break a hip trying to sink Lindon."

"Old-timers!" Lester protests. "I ain't even a hundred yet, kid, _those two_ are the old-timers."

"Ah, but I get better with age, my dear," Daken says with a leer.

"You make me look like a cradle-robbing old perv, is what you do. Let's hit the armory."

Wilson leads the way.

"What are our odds?" asks Daken.

"Yours 'n mine? Ninety-eight."

Daken doesn't like or trust that wording. "I meant of this stalling plot of yours succeeding."

"Odds of taking down the _Excalibur_, ninety-nine with my plan. Odds of taking down the _Excalibur_ without losing any of our carriers, eight. Odds of taking down the _Excalibur_ with one loss, twenty-two. Odds of taking down the _Excalibur_ but losing two carriers, fifty-five."

"What are the odds of the _Dayspring_ making it unscathed to the landing point to set up for Year Zero?"

Wilson glances back over his shoulder. "Unscathed? Seventy-one. Point two. With a catch. But I like my plan better, and if Dani's right, that catch won't be an issue, so it's closer to sixty."

"Two outta three ain't bad," Lester notes.

Daken goes over Wilson's speech and reactions during the brief meeting. "Summers is going to die. Cage's ship is going down?"

"A hundred minus eight is ninety-two. I know you know math, Junior."

"Fuck you and your evasive wording," snaps Daken. "I fight to _win_, and you said you have a way. I hope your plan is more thought-out than 'get aboard with explosives and suicide like Dayspring.'"

He expects the gun in his face, has never thought much of the efficacy of guns anyway. He doesn't flinch.

There's something oddly majestic about the fury in Wilson's hideous face. "I don't have time for your bullshit whining. We haven't got enough of _anything_ to go around, so none of us can afford to be selfish."

"It's served me pretty well for the last hundred years of my life."

"Comes a time when you win more by being self_less_."

"Yes, just look what that got my father," Daken retorts.

"Yeah, it got _your life_, and _Laura's life_, and _Juliet's life_," Wilson snarls. "And if _I'd_ been selfish, you would've been a pretty pile of glittery ash forty-five years ago. Now, you can fucking stay here to die like a little chicken-shit, or you can _regrow your balls_ and come with me to fuck up Lindon's happy goddamn day. It really doesn't matter to me, because the chances of success only fall by eleven percent." And he stalks off down the corridor.

When Lester starts to follow, Daken grabs his wrist.

"I wanna go," Lester says. "Lindon killed Karla and Mac and Frank, and then he went 'n got a fuckin' medal pinned on his chest. I know you don't do the 'friend' thing, but they were _my friends_. _Wilson_ is my friend, as fucking deranged as it is to say that. I'm gonna get on board Lindon's ship and fuckin' kill him by spittin' a tooth at him if I have to, but he's _not_ getting away with fucking with my goddamn friends."

Daken feels the unpleasant and unfamiliar churn of jealousy in his gut. "This is _not_ a good idea," he says.

"Ninety-nine, he said. Sounds pretty good to _me_."

"Of succeeding, not surviving." And Wilson said '_you 'n me_.' He didn't mention Lester.

Lester scoffs. "Y'wanna live forever?"

"Yes," Daken says flatly.

"I don't. Sounds fucking boring. Everybody dies, Aki."

It's not a fair argument, Daken feels. "Weren't _you_ always the one in favor of 'live to fight another day'?"

Slowly, Lester turns to face him. "When you get your meds regular for a few decades and people salute when you walk by and cute little kids cheer your name, you start to see there's some more important shit. In this case, fucking up the entire lifetime of the mother-fucker who took down a carrier that had three of my friends aboard. Fucker killed your dad, too—stole your kill. That doesn't _piss you off_?"

Daken gives in. "This is _not_ a good idea," he says again. He walks quickly to catch up to Wilson.

When they get to the armory, the Supreme Commander has a knife in his own gut and is slipping a roll of micro-charges into his abdominal cavity.

"You have _got_ to be kidding," Daken hopes.

"Pfft, this is the coolest way to smuggle anything, _ever_," Wilson replies. "If we can get four rolls onto the _Excalibur_, we can hit her bridge _and_ her engines." He tosses a pair of rolls to Lester, who looks at Daken expectantly.

"Don't be a pussy, Aki. Unzip, unless you want holes in your uniform."

Daken scowls, but unzips his suit down to his belly-button. "I hate you both so much right now. The very idea of this is disgusting. And unsanitary. Give me that…" He does it himself, with one of his claws, just to get things over with neatly and quickly. His body mends back together in an instant, leaving an awkward sensation of weight inside. "This is very uncomfortable," he complains, just for the sake of complaining.

"There are less comfortable places to smuggle things," Lester points out. "And if we get caught, those VF morons won't find the charges."

"When," Wilson says. "_When_ we get caught."

An outline of Wilson's plan is starting to take shape in Daken's mind. He suspects it has to do with being captured intentionally and escaping the brig. He frowns at this idea.

Lester smacks his ass. "Smile, babe, we ain't had a free license to annihilate in _decades_."

Now, _that's_ true.

"Let's skedaddle," suggests Wilson. "We're low on time before the _Madeen's_ in range."

"Wait," says Daken. "Shouldn't you send a briefing back to the _Dayspring_?"

"Laura can tell the chipmunk she's not getting her best gunners back."

Daken frowns. "Let me rephrase that—I am going to call Juliet, and you can leave without me if we're really that pressed for time."

"Shit, fine, fine…"

Laura's already got Juliet on the viewscreen when they get back to the war room. "Shouldn't you be leaving?" she asks.

Wilson jerks a thumb at Daken. "Junior won't go without saying goodbye to the chipmunk. The short-short version, please."

_~"So,"~_ says Juliet. _~"Finally putting those schematics Taskmaster got all those years ago to good use?"~_

Daken nods, suddenly uncomfortable. "Don't wait up for us, Julie. As soon as _Providence_ and the _Steve Rogers_ start firing, you run. Low and fast."

_~"I will. You go do your thing. And if you happen to have the time to spare afterward, try to make sure my husband gets back to me in one piece."~_

"I make no promises—you know I can't stand the boy."

She winks. _~"I know. Hurry up, or you'll be late."~_

He doesn't want to say goodbye. It already feels too final. He just nods again, and starts walking for the door. When they're in the shuttle, powering up to fly through the _Excalibur_'s ship-to-ship defenses, Lester takes his hand and squeezes it.

It's a hell of a ride, darting through the small-caliber flak fire, and Wilson threads it like a pro.

Daken snorts. Sometimes he forgets that Wilson is actually very good at what the three of them used to do.

"Two o'clock," says Lester, pointing.

"I see it," says Wilson.

"Two," Lester says again, urgently, as one of the bigger cannons comes to bear.

"Under control."

"Two, _two_! Are you gonna fuckin' dodge that thing or what?"

Daken braces against a console as they veer nimbly out of the line of fire.

"Would you relax and let me fly?"

"I'd like to live long enough to blow the thing up, thanks!"

Despite Lester's complaints, they touch down without incident (on one of the _Excalibur_'s own helipads).

"Thank you for flying Deadpool Air," Wilson says. "Now just follow my lead. And don't put up too much of a fight."

By the time they get out and halfway across the pad, about a dozen Valse troops have marched out to greet them, guns at the ready. "Halt!" their lieutenant cries.

Daken flexes his fists, waits for the order.

The idiot just casually draws a sword and waves it in the air. "Gentlemen, we are taking over this ship!" Wilson tells the troops.

"Aye, avast," Lester helpfully adds.

"Really?" Daken mutters. "You two and your movie quotes…"

The VF lieutenant looks at them incredulously. "There's only three of you."

Wilson makes a show of turning and looking at Daken and Lester. "Hm. One…two…three… I think you're right…"

"Pirates to Conan doesn't really work," remarks Lester.

The lieutenant ignores them. "We're taking you into custody. Drop your weapon and put your hands in the air."

Wilson obligingly drops his sword. "You heard the man."

Daken makes a face, but holds up his hands. "Really?"

"All part of my cunning Plan," Wilson says.

"Ugh. Remind me, darling—why are we going along with this moronic plot?"

Lester grins. "We're good guys now, sweetheart. Being suicidally stupid is a hero thing."

Daken grunts as one of the VF troops wrangles him into cuffs. "Thank you for clearing that up, love."

"You should probably go and brag as soon as you've put us in the brig," Wilson tells the lieutenant. "I'm important, you know. I'm the Supreme Commander of the Sovereign Nation of Providence. And I have a snowglobe in my tummy that tells me what to do."

"Uh…right. Listen," the lieutenant says to Lester, who probably looks like the most reasonable one of them. "Is he really the Supreme Commander? Because he seems a little…uh…"

"Not all there?" Lester suggests. "Yeah, he's a fucking loony-toon. Always has been. Thinks he has floating text box narration. He claims he's the hero of something called a 'fanfic.' Look at the guy—he honestly thought we could take out this whole ship, just the three of us. But he really is the Supreme Commander."

On cue, Wilson grins one of his most idiotic grins.

"Wow. So…why do you follow him?"

"Me, personally? Mostly for the laughs. And because he promised me a steady flow of medication."

Off they go to the brig. Daken honestly can't believe this is working, but people can be _very_ stupid, and it's extremely easy to underestimate Wilson.

The sympathetic Valse lieutenant trots off to inform Lindon of their unexpected good fortune—that the Supreme Commander of Providence has been captured.

"So, you guys use bars," Wilson observes, when they're in cells.

"Still work if the power goes down," the jailor replies.

"I see, I see!" Wilson gives the door of his cell a good firm shake. "Sturdy, too. Ever tested them against meta-humans?"

"Huh? I guess not…we don't usually take prisoners. We mostly just shoot 'em."

Daken can smell a sudden flash of anger from Wilson, but his dopey grin stays firm.

"Really? I guess I'll do you a quick favor, then…"

One solid kick is enough to send the door flying.

"Nope, definitely not rated to resist super strength," Wilson declares.

The jailor's death is perhaps a little elaborate, but Wilson seems to have taken his comments rather personally.

"You do realize that I could have had him unlock the doors and bash his own skull in quite happily?" Daken asks after breaking the lock of his own cell door.

"Yeah, I just kinda wanted to kill something. It's been a while. But, anyway, we're here and everything's going according to the Plan—please note capital letter."

"Yes, I had somehow suspected your 'Plan' involved the brig…and a capital letter," Daken sighs, and jerks open the door of Lester's cell.

Wilson offers a cheeky grin. "That's 'cause the brig is two levels _directly below_ the bridge. They just put us in a prime position to wire every last inch of their control infrastructure to go boom. After that, it's a skip and a jump to rig their primary loft engines on our way to steal a lifeboat and get off this piece of shit before it blows." He grunts as he takes back one of his swords from the dead guard and cuts himself open.

Grimacing, Daken retrieves his half of the explosives.

"Just think—the power to take down a dreadnought the size of fuckin' _Kansas_ in four packages the size of Swiss Cake Rolls…god bless StarkTech."

"Fuck you," mutters Daken. "And fuck Stark, wherever he is."

_~Don't worry, Stark's fucked,~_ says a familiar synthesized voice from the region of Wilson's intestines.

"That's _revolting_," Daken growls.

_~You think this was fun for me?~_

"I have no idea what's fun for you, you overblown paperweight."

Wilson just unconcernedly wipes Eight-ball off on his sleeve. "The schematics, please."

A three-dimensional wireframe appears in the depths of the glass globe.

"And for his next trick, kids, he'll pull a rabbit out…" snickers Lester.

Daken's stomach turns. "Ugh. Thanks for that mental image, dear."

"This way, gentlemen," Wilson says hopping onto the guard's desk to stick a micro-charge on the ceiling. "Mind your heads."

The charge goes off with a muted boom, and easily blasts through the two-foot-thick sandwich of cabling, pipes, and ventilation that makes up the floor of the next level. The hole left by the explosion is just big enough for them to squeeze through.

Wilson leads the way into what looks like some kind of storage bay, and climbs up a stack of crates to get to the ceiling. "Follow this seam," he says. "Really, it's almost plot-devicey how easy they've made it."

Daken arches an eyebrow as he hands Lester half a roll of charges. "You call this easy? The _Madeen_ is probably here by now, ready to—"

The ship shakes for a moment.

"Less talky, more climby," snaps Wilson.

"You know, we could, in theory, just blast our way in and massacre the bridge crew. I am a big fan of that strategy."

"At which point the gunners would notice all the horrible screams over their comms and just keep on shooting without orders. Faster to kill the _ship_, not the _people_."

So Daken scowls and scales a stack of crates.

The three of them work in silent tandem for a time, sticking the tiny exploding disks to the steel plates of the ceiling. Occasionally, the ship rocks with more fire—Laura and Cage are probably being cautious, probably focusing on the _Madeen_.

It's got to be rough for Cage, since the _Steve Rogers_ is down a drive engine and two loft engines. A lifetime ago, Juliet had said that loft engine failure increased the load of neighboring loft engines by thirty-five percent. Two on the same side of the carrier means that if Cage tries to push her ship too hard, too fast, it'll drop like a brick.

The same thing'll happen if the _Madeen_ or the _Excalibur_ manages to take out one of her other loft engines.

Maybe Summers will be able to keep it in the air. Probably not from inside the ship. Outside, she'll be a sitting duck.

_A hundred minus eight is ninety-two._

Daken can hear the echoing chatter, the radio noise, the barked orders and brisk conversation, even as they finish setting the charges.

"—direct hit on—"

"—loft engines are failing!"

"—meta appears to be attempting to cushion—"

"—firing on the meta—"

"—going down, repeat, the _Steve Rogers_ is going down."

Sitting duck.

"Shit," Daken mutters, slipping the last charge into place. "Cage's ship just went down. If we don't want Laura and Julie to be next, we have to blow this ship."

"Juliet had better goddamn well not be next," Wilson hisses. "I told Laura to use everything she had to make sure the _Dayspring_ lands. They've got three ships' worth of refugees."

"You think I don't fucking _know_ all that?" Daken snaps. He jumps down and waits for Wilson to lead the way toward the escape pods.

"Hey, no, _wait_," says Lester. "I want some face-time with Lindon."

"Are you out of your—" Daken starts, but Wilson interrupts him.

"Gimme the other roll of charges. Our ride out's on this deck, five bulkheads aft. You've got however long it takes me to rig the primary forward engine, which I think'll be about five minutes."

"Shit," Daken mutters as he throws Wilson the last roll of mini-charges.

The Supreme Commander ducks out the door and starts running.

"You're losing your sense of fun, babe," Lester snorts.

"Fuck you, precious."

And then Wilson must've hit the detonator, because the ceiling of the storeroom blasts open along the seam.

They climb up amid smoke and sparks and chaos. The blast took out the primary control and communication consoles (as well as their operators). People are coughing and groaning and trying to understand what's just happened.

Lester has one of his favorite blades in his hand, twirling it with anticipation as he spots Lindon.

Daken focuses on systematically gutting anyone with a weapon. Over the acrid smells of burning plastic and silicon, he catches blood and fear, and then the pleasant curl of Lester's satisfaction.

"_That's_ for Frank, and _this_ one's for Mac, and _this_ one is for Karla, you fucking wet streak of _piss_," he hears Lester muttering, underscored by the wet squish of knife in flesh.

And then Daken realizes that everyone is dead, and he remembers they're in a hurry. "Time to go, love," he calls. Out the front viewport, he can see a dark shape vanishing into the distance and knows it's Juliet.

Lester sheathes his knife and comes up beside Daken. "Let's go, then," he says.

Daken nods. They jump back down and head aft.

If he's perfectly honest with himself (which he rarely is), Juliet and her mother are probably the only things left in the world that he cares about, aside from Lester.

_Go, Julie, go,_ he thinks desperately as they run.

**.End.**


	6. Do or Die

brief but important. part of how Eight-ball ends up out of Wade's custody.

**warnings:** some Dark Avengers. Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). OCs: Juliet is Laura's daughter, Mike Richards (Juliet's husband) is Frank's son, Katie Ashton is the girl Tommy saved back in **Hero** (a **Nightmares Side Story**). multiple and future character deaths. language: pg (for bastard).

**pairing:** none/gen (background Daken/Lester).

**timeline:** 2065, shortly after **(Stand up and) Face the Enemy**.

**disclaimer:** i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

**notes:** 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." all the titles from the End of Dreaming sequence will be. 2) the ringing bell Wade hears right after the memory wipe is Eight-ball hitting the floor. Forecaster makes the same noise when he bounces off something solid—a clear, bell-like chime. 3) Renquist is the name of the Valse Faction admiral. 4) INSERT PLOT DEVICE HERE. i had to kill Laura off somehow. 5) the truly attentive will recognize Laura's words here from Wade's memories in **Greenie** (part of **Hypnic Twitches**).

* * *

><p><strong>Do or Die<strong>

Wade's going on instinct as he flies their stolen escape shuttle through the crossfire of the embattled carriers. He's missed this adrenaline-thick thrill of jinking along like a will-o'-the-wisp, past four-inch-diameter white-hot pieces of flying metal, between pulses of white plasma and bursts of blue glow that indicate a laser weapon hitting a gravimetric shield.

A mile from relative safety, inches away from death on every side, flying around in a tin can with seats.

Easy.

Like riding a bike.

Bullseye is clutching his safety harness in a white-knuckled grip—he's never trusted Wade's flying, for some reason. Maybe he just doesn't trust _anybody's_ flying but his own.

Daken's eyes are glued to the carrier in the distance, like Juliet's _his_ kid instead of Laura's.

Wade very carefully doesn't look at the pillar of smoke on the ground a couple thousand yards away. When he deems they've gotten far enough from the _Excalibur_, punches the detonator for the charges he left on their primary forward engine. It's a hell of a shockwave, batting them off course like a leaf in a gale, and he almost wishes they'd been facing the other way so he could've seen it.

"Couldn't you have waited until we were back on _Providence_?" snaps Bullseye.

"And miss you freaking out like some blue-haired old lady in the back seat of her grandson's Camaro?" Wade retorts with a grin.

_~Fifteen meters right, two down,~_ says Eight-ball.

Wade follows the directions, knowing he's being pointed to a hole in _Providence_'s failing shields. Inside the bubble, he swings them under the ship to the shuttle bay.

"She's falling apart," Daken comments. "Looked like three dead engines and a top deck with more craters than the moon. She's not going to survive this fight."

Shrugging, Wade doesn't bother to power down the shuttle after he lands it. "Probably. That's why we've got an escape pod and a self-destruct button."

They get out and jog to the deck's central corridor.

"So we're gathering the survivors and getting out."

Wade nods. "I'll take the bridge, you go to the starboard guns, Bullseye gets port. Rendezvous at the bridge escape hatch in five."

Daken and Bullseye nod, and the three of them split.

The journey from the shuttle bay to the bridge is short, but indirect; another piece of tactical brilliance from the mind of Tony Stark. There are a lot of twists and turns (memorized long ago), every hatch is secured for battle stations (to keep the place pressurized), and Wade has to jog up a flight of stairs.

He pauses when he's almost there, because Eight-ball beeps.

_~Incoming one-way broadwave from the _Dayspring_.~_

Muttering a curse, Wade digs his comm unit out of his pocket. It has bad reception now, from all the damaged electronics on the ship, but Wade clutches it and listens.

And from the buzz and flicker, a miracle.

_~"—elicarrier _Dayspring_ has landed. Repeat, thi—Commander Juliet Richards, the _Dayspring_ has landed. If any—still listening, we're safe. Mike, Mom, Uncle Wade, Uncle Daken, we—afe. We w—ontinue plans to settle and aw—Year Zero. Come the fortieth, w—be waiting for Nathan and Hope."~_

He smiles and shoves the comm unit pack into his pocket. "Good work, chipmunk."

_~Wade.~_

"What now?"

_~I'm going to have to rearrange your memory a little.~_

"Excuse you?" Wade says, setting Eight-ball down so that he can pry open a stuck hatch.

_~Just a little. A minor memory wipe, to fix the worst of the probability contamination. You'll keep the important parts, and you'll probably remember it all eventually, anyway.~_

"Then why bother?"

_~Like I said, probability contamination. And it'll be easier for you this way.~_

"I don't _want_ easy."

_~I know. But you have to live.~_

Wade picks up the Node and steps through. He doesn't bother resealing the hatch. "You're not actually going to give me a choice in this, are you?" he grunts.

_~No. I'm sorry.~_

White light.

A ringing bell.

"What was I doing?" Wade wonders.

The ship quakes with sudden weapons impact.

Saving the world. Again.

Oh _yeah_. That's right.

Wade shakes himself and starts walking. The bridge. He has to get to the bridge.

Bullseye and Daken are loading Mike and Katie and the gunners into the last lifeboat, so Wade has to find out if there's anybody left on the bridge to evacuate, and then set the thing to self-destruct in Renquist's face.

Just one more bulkhead. At least the hatch isn't stuck.

The place is a mess. Exposed wiring, collapsed ceiling, sparking consoles.

Dead bodies.

Briggs, Maxwell, Smith. Paula. Marcus.

"Who's…there?"

Wade scrambles over the bodies of the bridge crew to the collapsed section.

Laura is crushed under several tons of steel, slowly but surely suffocating.

If it were moved, she might regen. Wade tries and can't even budge it. She has a hand free, and there are deep cuts in the wreckage from her claws, but she's at a bad angle. If they had time, he'd have Daken try to cut through. They don't have time. Renquist's blasting the crap out of the ship _now_.

She stretches her hand out to him.

"Hey, old man," she croaks, and smiles wanly.

"Hey, Greenie," he replies, taking her hand in his. Her fingers are strong, and they hold on like she doesn't mean to ever let go.

"Did they make it? Did…did my girl make it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, the chipmunk landed her ship safe and sound. I'm just sorry I couldn't do more for you and Dani."

"Good…that's…" Her eyes are fierce with determination, suddenly. "Don't listen to them. Don't let them tell you it was your fault, because it _wasn't_. Not this, not the Big One, not Nathan."

He pats her hand and nods, not trusting his voice.

"Get them," she wheezes, and her grip really does start to crack his bones. "Get the bastards."

He nods again. "I swear it."

**.End.**


	7. We're Gonna Scream Until We're Satisfied

BOOM. second-to-last part. this is what happens when you let yourself get attached to things.

**warnings:** some Dark Avengers. Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). flangsty flangst. multiple character deaths. language: pg-13 (for f***, g**damn, and f**got).

**pairing:** a little Daken/Lester.

**timeline:** 2065, shortly after **Do or Die**.

**disclaimer:** i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

**notes:** 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." all the titles from the End of Dreaming sequence will be. 2) back in **(No) Sacrifice**, Dani expressed a singular lack of faith in Daken's ability to be self-sacrificing. somewhere along the line, Wade said "dude, i bet you a hundred bucks" and she was silly enough to take the bet. 3) Renquist is the name of the Valse Faction admiral. the _Madeen_ is his nifty-pretty flagship. 4) Renquist is probably in his forties, which is actually pretty young for an admiral. 5) VF = Valse Faction. 6) ventral is belly-side, opposite of dorsal (top). 7) heron blue is a medium-pale, slightly desaturated blue. the Sears paint version of it comes out as 7AA0B7 in hex.

* * *

><p><strong>(We're Gonna) Scream Until We're Satisfied<strong>

Daken flinches as sparks shoot up from the console nearby. "Wilson!" he shouts. "Hurry up; the lifeboat's about to leave!"

Through the smoke, he sees Wilson straighten up and get into his command chair. "Not going," he says. "They want my ship? I'll ram it down their fucking throats."

Daken swears under his breath and picks his way over bodies and fallen metal panels and debris from the deck above. "Are you out of your fucking _mind_? What the hell good will that do us?"

"Feel free to run away, Junior," Wilson grunts, punching up a heading. "I keep my promises."

Daken pauses for a moment when he sees Laura.

_Goddammit._

"You're going to need someone managing the engines," he grudgingly admits. "Give me two minutes to get that lifeboat out of here."

"Hah. If Dani were alive, she'd owe me a hundred bucks. You've got eighty seconds."

He turns and hurries back the way he came, sprinting down the crumpled corridor to the nearest escape hatch, where the last lifeboat is waiting.

The ship rocks as another volley of fire makes it through a hole in the shields.

"Aki?" Lester calls. "Where's the Supreme Commander?"

"Get in the boat and go," Daken says. "We're crashing _Providence_ into the _Madeen_."

He can't read the expression on Lester's face, and the smell of burning electronics muddles the scents. Lester leans into the hatch, says something to the people on the lifeboat, leans back out, and shuts the escape hatch.

"You _idiot_!" Daken cries, rushing forward. "You've got less than thirty seconds to get on that fucking lifeboat!"

Lester catches him by the shoulders and kisses him hard. "You're the idiot, you fucking stubborn fairy. If we only ever rely on each other, that means I gotta be there for you to rely on."

"You stupid fucking…" Daken growls, but trails off. "If you die, I'll _never forgive you_."

"That's my line, princess."

Daken rolls his eyes. "Think you're so fucking dashing, just because you've been a goddamn hero for forty-five years…"

"That's right," Lester says patiently. "I've been a goddamn hero for _half my life_. Haven't you even looked at me lately, Aki? You look the same as ever. Me, I've gotten wrinkles, and I'm starting to go grey. Even with nanomachines and life extension treatments and mutant healing factors gluing me back together, I haven't got much left in me. I'm _not_ gonna die of old age, and I'm _not_ gonna pass up the chance to take Renquist with me."

Daken hates crying—hates feeling weak, looking weak—but he can't stop himself. Lester is the only thing in his life he's ever _really_ wanted to keep. "Okay," he says, and his throat feels thick. "Okay, let's do it. Hell, we gave heroism a try, might as well go all the way."

Lester grins. "I love you, you fucking faggot-ass little fairy bitch."

Daken laughs, wipes his eyes. "I love you, you defective fucking _idiot_. Let's go die in a blaze of glory like fucking Dayspring and his little Avenger friends."

And he hurries back to the bridge, immediately takes the engineering station, offsetting various engines to give Wilson a straight line. "There," he says. "You've got fifty-five percent thrust on a zero bearing."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Wilson says, pressing a button on the command console. "Can somebody get me a line to the _Madeen_?"

Lester pokes around in the remains of the comm station and pulls up the main projector.

A scene of the _Madeen_'s bridge shows, interspersed with bursts of static.

_~"Ah, Supreme Commander Wilson,"~_ says Renquist. _~"Ready to surrender your ship?"~_

"Hi there, Admiral Dickface," Wilson replies cheerily. "Actually, I was gonna give _you_ the chance to surrender. You may have more guns, but _Providence_ has more than twice the mass of the _Madeen_, and she can still push you around."

The Valse Faction Admiral laughs. _~"You must be getting senile, Wilson. How old _are_ you, anyway?"~_

"Old enough to have been saving the world before you were a gleam in your daddy's eye, and old enough to have been killing people before _he_ was a gleam in your _grandpa's_ eye. For reals, kid, I'll give you one last chance to apologize and run away before I kill you."

_~"We'll see who kills whom,"~_ Renquist grunts, and cuts off the channel.

"That may have been the lamest comeback ever," Wilson says. "He's gonna be pretty sheepish when he finds out I was serious."

"The idea is for him to be pretty _dead_ when he finds out," Daken mutters, and reroutes some power to keep them on course at max speed. He sees Lester messing with the shields, probably adjusting to give them a decent buffer.

"Ain't it great that VF ships put their bridges on top, where anybody could just crash a giant Helicarrier into 'em and scrape 'em off?" muses Wilson.

"They didn't have the benefit of Stark's paranoid planning."

"Ventral shields almost gone," Lester informs them.

The proximity alarm sounds, a shrill beeping over their heads.

_~Collision imminent. Impact in fifteen seconds.~_

"Gentlemen, it's been an honor," Wilson says, and for once there's no hint of a joke in his voice.

"You're an idiot," Daken says.

Lester takes his hand with a grin. "Seeya on the other side, babe."

"You're _both_ idiots," Daken corrects.

The impact throws them forward. Things start to buckle and crumple—a raucous noise of squealing steel and screaming people and shattering glass. The lights spark and go out. Something explodes. There's an ominous creak followed by weightlessness, and Daken realizes _they've done it_; the _Madeen_ is falling like a rock, with _Providence_ above her, ready to squash her flat when they meet the ground.

And then the world goes black.

When Daken comes back to consciousness, he discovers that part of _Providence_ sheared off in the crash, and he's breathing outside air. It smells awful, full of smoke and ash and poison, and he actually _misses_ the canned, recycled smells of the Helicarriers.

His body currently consists of several bright spots of agony, bones knitting back together and organs stabilizing. In the orange, nuke-dimmed sunlight, he sees Wilson sit up and reattach an arm with a muttered stream of complaints (and something that sounds like 'Deadpool wins, mother-fucker'). For a moment, Daken lets himself believe that they've done the impossible—they've pulled a kamikaze kill on the _Madeen_ and lived.

Then his ears tell him that he only hears two heartbeats, two sets of labored breathing.

Slowly, he looks toward the hand still holding his own and sees blood. Some of it's surely his own, but a lot of it must have come from the fragment of metal plating in Lester's throat, or the mass of twisted metal crushing and obscuring Lester's lower half. Heron blue eyes stare at him, unseeing.

Any moment now, it'll hit him. Any moment now, his world will crash down around him, and he'll hurt so much he can't breathe, in a way he'll never heal from.

Just like his stupid heroic father.

"Wilson," he calls, and his voice sounds hoarse and weak.

Heavy footsteps move toward him. "Yeah, kid?" Wilson murmurs.

"Kill me," he says. "Before my heart has time to break."

He hears the slow hiss of steel unsheathing. "Don't say I never did ya any favors," Wilson says, raising his blade.

_See you on the other side, darling._

**.End.**


	8. We Will Be Invincible

congratulations, you have now read a circular story. i feel it loops pretty well, but still leaves room for side stories about Wade's adventures between the 21st and 29th centuries. to continue the loop, read **Lost & Found** and then **Hypnic Twitches**.

**warnings:** Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). multiple character deaths. language: pg-13 (for f*** and s***).

**pairing:** none/gen.

**timeline:** 2065, shortly after **(We're Gonna) Scream Until We're Satisfied**.

**disclaimer:** i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.

**notes:** 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." 2) Lynchberg is on the far west end of Virginia. Interstate-95 is a highway that runs the entire length of the east coast of the US. 3) Double Stuf. a little call-back to **Lost & Found**. 4) a Segway is a ridiculous but awesome item of technology. if you don't know what i'm talking about, Stane was riding a Segway when he met Tony at the Arc Reactor building right after the press conference in Iron Man-it's this two-wheel upright motorized vehicle that looks stupid but is surprisingly intuitive to ride. 5) Wicked is great. Wade probably feels like Defying Gravity is his theme song.

* * *

><p><strong>Invincible<strong>

Wade stands on the scorched earth and looks around. They were…somewhere around Lynchburg, last time he'd been able to check their nav maps.

_Head east and follow the I-95. Easy._

He hesitates, peering up at the ash-clouded sky.

"East. That's, uh…"

He has no idea.

It's annoyingly difficult to navigate in a blasted nuclear desert where you can barely see the sun as a brighter orange blob above the ugly grey-orange clouds. The only landmarks in sight are various bits of wreckage. Four big ships in pitched battle make a lot of mess, especially when they crash. Especially when one of them is, quite literally, the size of frigging _Kansas_. The _Excalibur_ is gonna be an amazing piece of brand new ecosystem for some enterprising decomposers.

He picks a direction and starts walking. Worst case, he'll hit the big-ass gorge where the Mississippi was and know to turn around.

Okay, no. Worst case, he'll hit the Canadian wastes and freeze his ass off.

"I feel like I'm forgettin' something."

_Can't have left the stove on._

"Nah, we haven't used stoves in…in…" He pauses. "Thirty years, is that right?"

_Yeah._

"God bless matter synths. Double Stuf Oreos nanometrically constructed from our nanometrically deconstructed poop. It's cool _and_ gross at the same time."

_Protons is protons, dude._

"Yeah."

But Wade just can't shake that feeling he's forgotten something important.

After a while, he finds his multi-tool and flips out the screwdriver. Kneeling on the dusty ground, he starts to dig letters.

Laura Keller. Daken. Bullseye.

"There," he says, standing up. "That's better. Four thousand, eight hundred and sixty-six…seven…six. Shit. Can't remember. Good thing I didn't try to count civilians."

He just looks at the names for a while, decides he's been heading north-ish, and veers right.

_Hey, Dani owes us a hundred bucks!_

He stops to carve again.

Danielle Cage. Rachel Summers. Gabriel Frost.

"Why the hell can't I remember the names of Dani's gunners?" he groans, hanging his head.

Marisa…Schubert. Robert Young. R-something Marsh…Ralla, Razza, Ranna…Ranna! Calvin…starts with a B…

"Screw it!" he finally shouts, standing up. "Juliet's got a copy of the personnel database. Just make a list of all the people _not_ on the lifeboat and start putting 'em on the wall."

He starts walking again.

"And what does it matter, anyway? Not like anybody's ever gonna remember who they were, so why even bother to sit down and…"

He stops again.

Feeling ashamed of himself, he shoves the screwdriver back into the dead ground and starts digging out the letter T, two feet tall and an inch deep.

"Stupid," he mutters as he starts on O. "They were _counting_ on you. All of them. Nobody's gonna remember, so you _have_ to. It always starts with one. _One_ man saving _one_ girl who grows up to save eighteen thousand-and-some civilians whose great-great-grandkids will overthrow _Apocalypse_."

He stays there, a few hundred yards from the husk of _Providence_, and carves until the name is done. It's getting dark by then, but he feels better.

It's chilly. He starts walking again.

"Destiny or whatever…it's gotta be _you_, stupid. What's left of the world is counting on you. So just don't fuck up, Wade."

_Harder than it sounds._

"Yeah, tell me about it."

Night. In the middle of a desert. No wood for fire, no food to eat, no warm fur coat.

"Man. Saving the world _sucks_. Next time, I'll just start the self destruct, hop on the lifeboat, and hope for the best. At least if I'd done that, I'd be warm."

_Might've missed Renquist._

"Woulda kicked his ass later."

_Woulda lost civilians._

"Stop talking logic at me, yellow boxes. How far is it from the Virginia to New York?"

_From where we think we maybe are? 'Bout three-sixty, as the merc flies. More like four hundred if this really is east and we take the I-95. Lot more if this isn't really east._

"Damn. That's a lotta walking with no cheesy puffs."

_Wanna play 'I Spy'?_

"No. You always win. I think you cheat."

_Do not! It ain't my fault you think out loud!_

Wade pauses, thinking. "Yes, it is," he concludes, and resumes his trek.

_This is gonna take forever. Like…four days, unless you keep stopping._

"Thanks for stating the obvious. The math part of my brain already figured that out without my permission. I'm getting tired just thinking about it. My kingdom for a Segway!"

_Sure you don't wanna play 'I Spy'?_

"I'm incredibly sure. Like, as sure as I am that guns are awesome and swords are better."

_…I spy with my little eye something that starts wiiiiith…R._

"Radioactive wasteland."

_Dammit! And you accuse _me_ of cheating!_

"Cry me a narrative river."

_…wanna sing some show-tunes?_

"Depends. You know any of the songs from Wicked?"

**.End.**


End file.
